Image is sourced from here.
I think a good place for left-wing coverage on the protests is hasanabi, either on his Twitter or Twitch (and wherever else he is found), as he’s been physically in the streets with the protestors and lives in the area.
Over the last few days, ICE raids have taken place throughout Los Angeles, as well as throughout America more generally. An increasing number of these raids are targeting migrants with no criminal record whatsoever (about 25% right now, but increasing constantly), which is a quantifiable escalation from both Trump’s first term and Biden’s term, where the figures were more in the realm of 5-10%.
Los Angeles has a large percentage of people who are Hispanic; as such, these raids were massively provocative, and protests began to oppose them. In response to these largely peaceful protests, the police have been exceedingly violent, with protestors and clearly marked journalists being shot at by police with “non-lethal” rounds. Trump has recently sent in the National Guard. The rhetoric of the Republicans has been, as expected, abhorrent and cruel.
While obviously coalescing around different issues, there are some parallels to be drawn with the Black Lives Matter protests five years ago; which, while drawing out enormous numbers of protestors, was eventually co-opted and gradually dismantled and failed to achieve lasting social or political goals. The two questions for this protest are: 1) What lessons have been learned by organisers and people on the ground from previous protests? and 2) Is there a general plan, or an idea of a plan, to affect political change (either top-down or bottom-up) that results in either fewer ICE raids or limiting their effectiveness?
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
The first of many:
https://xcancel.com/MyGlendale/status/1931915078212952336
wow throwing concrete at cops does work
The only two cities that did anything whatsoever to reform their police in 2020 were Portland and Minneapolis, where the riots were the most severe.
Everywhere else that only had peaceful solidarity marches got cop funding increases
I still hear anecdotal reports from both places about cops refusing to do their jobs, potentially as retaliation. Taking hours to show up to an urgent scene, not following up on reports, etc. A few weeks ago, a teenager carjacked someone and zoomed right past the cops in Minneapolis, who didn’t move a muscle. Their reasoning was that a car chase was more dangerous than just showing up to the kids house, which might be fair (except that they often stop to rob 5 or 6 people at gunpoint before they’re done), but the perception is that they generally don’t do anything in 99% of other youth car jacking cases that go on in the area.
comrade cops have stopped doing their jobs everywhere in america since 2020
I live in a shitty town north of houston, on the outskirts of the furthest right wing county in the state of texas
cops are fucking SCARCE, they have entirely quit enforcing traffic laws except for quick stack-ups at the beginning and end of the month
people are blowing red lights in cars with no plates and nobody’s stopping them
if it’s not the first or last of the month and you see a cop they’re probably parked and watching porn in their cruiser drinking a coors
Oh for sure, I live nowhere near those cities and I have people street racing outside my house every couple nights with souped up cars that have lights under 'em like it’s Need for Speed. So far they haven’t hit anybody, but it’s only a matter of time. There’s no way I’m the only one who knows or cares, but nobody ever stops them.
yeah. I think demoralization, staffing levels, and shit like you describe, has done more to improve the police situation in portland/mpls than intentional reforms tbh
it also produces some negative outcomes in terms of just lawlessness, but I’m not convinced its not a net positive to just have lazy cops who won’t get off their asses since less police interaction=less harm
Yep Portland cops have been pissy about the “disrespect” and extra training courses for diversity awareness or whatever the libs foisted on them. They don’t respond to any calls for hours, never follow up on stolen or vandalized cars and generally just have withdrawn